PLANS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 349 



exploration exists in the South Pacific, where the Austral 

 lands approach much more nearly to the Equator, in 

 climates where the most precious products of nature are 

 found. 



And Maupertuis pointed to the special interest which " A world 

 these Southern lands will possess both for the man of apa ' 

 science and for the man of commerce. ; ' They form 

 so-to-say a world apart, in which one cannot foresee that 

 which exists. The discovery of these lands, therefore, 

 may offer the greatest utilities for commerce, and the most 

 marvellous spectacles for Science." It is in isles of the 

 South Sea that travellers say that they have seen savage 

 hairy men with tails, " a kind of mean between the monkeys 

 and ourselves." . And Maupertuis would rather have 

 an hour's conversation with the Missing Link than with 

 the greatest genius in Europe. 



Maupertuis' Letters were read as a lecture to a learned 

 Society. When the lecture was over, one of the audience, 

 Charles de Brosses, President of the Parliament of Dijon, De Brosses' 



made a speech of half an hour on discoveries in the South History of 



Navigations, 

 Seas. His ideas were similar to those of Maupertuis. 1756. 



He had long studied the subject, both " as citizen and as 

 geographer," and he knew a great deal about it. The 

 learned Society was so impressed by the curious and novel 

 character of what he said, that he was requested to write 

 a Memoir, and to read it at the next meeting. The Memoir 

 was highly appreciated, and he was persuaded to develop 

 his opinions in other memoirs. Finally, at the urgent 

 request of scientific friends, de Brosses published in 

 1756 a book entitled " History of Navigations to the 

 Southern lands ; containing what is known of the manners 

 and the products of the countries discovered to the present 

 time ; treating also of the utility of making more ample 

 discoveries, and of the means of forming a settlement 

 there." In these volumes, much used by Cook and Banks 

 on the Endeavour, de Brosses gave extracts from narratives 

 of forty-seven voyages in the South Sea. But the parts 

 that are of interest to us are Book I, in which he discusses 

 "the utilities of discovery," and Book V, in which he 



